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I read a book recently that made me feel just a little bit more peaceful or mindful, shall we say.
The book is called Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, by Peter H. Diamandis.
In a nutshell, this book gave me hope that the world is not going to hell in a hand basket.
In fact, quite the opposite is happening.
Unfortunately, fear sells.
I blame a lot of this one of my old radio occupations – the news.
We tend to live in a world where a lot of bad news is reported every day.
Yes, bad things are happening all the time and it’s sad, but is there an ulterior motive behind some of those headlines? Let’s face it, bad news sells. There is a reason why Fox made two billion dollars last year.
As Bill Gates once said, “No one wants to hear small incremental good news.”
However, there IS small, incremental good news happening every day. Lots of good people are continuously doing good things on a local and international level.
Factfulness and Humankind
Two of my favourite books are Factfulness:Ten Reasons Why We’re Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think and Humankind: A Hopeful History. They share the same message: the world is not going to end, just yet. Abundance adds to this message by putting more specifics behind the dashboard.
Let me share some of this good news with you.
Basically, there are all sorts of really great innovations and solutions currently in the works for now and for our future. These innovations are in some fascinating fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology (that’s technology on a really, really small scale that will allow us to create materials that haven’t even been invented yet), 3D printing, solar power and global connectivity. Collectively, this is all shining a bit fat spotlight on a positive, prosperous and abundant future.
For example, robots and artificial intelligence will help us improve healthcare while nanotechnology and digital manufacturing will help us reduce waste while preserving our precious natural resources.
Take the year 2020… please!
One of the interesting things about 2020 is that there were three billion people online. That means there were A LOT of people cranking out ideas, solutions or maybe even writing jokes.
So many people are developing and sharing ideas towards making our planet a better place.
As Diamandis says, “Technology is a resource-liberating mechanism. It can make the once scarce the now abundant.”
The point is that the more educated and enlightened we are, the better chance we have of being the superheroes of our own planet. But here’s where the hard work begins for all of us: we have to give up some of our TV time.
Diamandis states, “If we were to forgo our television addiction for just one year, the world would have over a trillion hours of cognitive surplus to commit to share projects.”
He says, “I’ve got a hunk of gold and you have a watch. If we trade, then I have a watch and you have a hunk of gold. But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we exchange them, then we both have two ideas. It’s nonzero.”
The computers will figure it out.
By the way, if we can’t come up with these lifesaving ideas on our own, the computers probably will. In the next 15 years, computer processors are set to surpass the human brain’s calculation capacity. Just think, you can sit back and watch re-runs of Broadchurch while your robot, Fido, figures it out and, as technology gets cheaper, so will Fido.
There is hope!
Whether we figure it out or Fido figures it out -there is hope. We have ideas and ideas lead to solutions.
As the author says, “In today’s hyperlinked world, solving problems anywhere, solves problems everywhere.”
Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, by Peter H. Diamandis.
I give this book two human thumbs way up! I highly recommend this good read. The future does look bright.
Now turn that light off if you’re not using it.
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Until next time, Laugh Long and Prosper!
